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Fujitsu's FingerLink Interaction System Makes Dumb Paper Smart

By Rain Noe - April 18, 2013

in UX

I've simplistically assumed we would advance from "dumb" paper with things printed on it to some smarter variant, where every sheet of paper is an iPad. But as researchers at Fujitsu Laboratories demonstrate here, there's still plenty of room to design new interfaces that are between those two extremes.

By combining an ordinary webcam, a computer and an off-the-shelf projector, Fujitsu's "FingerLink Interaction System" provides a new user interface that effectively turns a "dumb" piece of paper, and the table it's sitting on, into a touchscreen. Check out how they did it, and peep the CAD demo starting around 2:43:

I love that they've cobbled this together from humble parts; it reminds me of kids in the Bronx inventing hip hop with a turntable and a bunch of old records. I also found it amusing that despite the coolness and potential of the technology, they've got such pedestrian aspirations for the system: "We think this system could be used to show detailed information at a travel agent's counter," explains Taichi Murase, a research in Fujitsu's Media Service System Lab, "or when you need to fill in forms at City Hall."

Via Dig Info TV

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clement

12 years ago

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Things like that have been done for years in the Computer-Human Interaction community, since the Digital Desk in 1991 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8lCetZ_57g

Almost every year there is a new paper about how to do the computer vision work, or bringing new ideas for interaction.
There is nothing new in this video, except that it seems to work well :-)
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tej

12 years ago

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Didn't Berg do something like this recently while working with some Google lab?
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Aaron

12 years ago

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OH snap! Are there any other ID'ers out there that instantly thought when watching this of sketching on paper then digitizing it with a swipe of your finger? Awesome!
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bob

12 years ago

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this is a great way to help senior citizens jump right into technology. Or maybe it is a new way to scare them. Either way it should be very useful in Japan
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